Currently on view:
Joseph Broghammer
Avifauna
Avifauna is the latest in Broghammer’s series of works featuring intersections, both observed and imagined, between human and animal subjects. As the show’s title suggests, Avifauna is premised on the study of the collective bird life of a particular region. Yet, in typical Broghammer fashion, this is not an ornithological investigation, but an allegorical portrait of personal life. His realistically rendered specimens are embellished with layers of implied narrative, with atmospheric backgrounds and an array of symbols and ciphers that take the works well beyond illustration toward the realm of fabulism.
Broghammer’s birds are disrupted with exaggerated features and other fantastic hybridizations. They often appear surrounded by an orbit of thin wires from which dangle tiny, silhouetted figures and shapes—the other markers of their environment. Taking his drawing style into a dimensional space, the artist has also introduced five delicate wire sculptures—unsteady birdhouses portending uncertain refuge. As always, Broghammer’s world of feathered creatures is characteristically and gloriously enigmatic, filled with his idiosyncratic psychodramas, conveying a wondrously singular story.
Hours
Monday: Closed
Tuesday – Saturday: 12 – 8 PM
Sunday: 12 – 6 PM